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Rushdie Among Those Who Respond to Israel’s Ban of Günter Grass

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Rushdie Among Those Who Respond to Israel’s Ban of Günter Grass

By John Williams April 9, 2012 4:54 pmApril 9, 2012 4:54 pm

On Sunday Israel’s interior minister, Eli Yishai, declared the author Günter Grass unwelcome in Israel. This came after a controversial poem by Mr. Grass was published in the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. The poem, “What Must Be Said,” is not being analyzed for its rhyme scheme. In it, Mr. Grass writes: “Why do I say only now, / Aged and with my last ink, / That the nuclear power of Israel endangers / The already fragile world peace?”

The poem drew reactions that fell along a predictable divide, but it has been difficult to find much immediate support for Israel’s decision to bar the 84-year-old author. Liel Leibovitz, a senior writer for Tablet magazine, wrote that “the obvious conclusion is that the state of Israel will from now on categorically ban anyone who criticizes it in any way from entry. Which means that I, too, should be banned, immediately, and General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of Joints Chief of Staff, and Coldplay, and anyone else who has ever publicly uttered any word that could be somehow construed as anything less than entirely and unquestioningly approving of Israel and every single one of its actions and policies.”

Matthew Rothschild, editor of The Progressive magazine, wrote: “The controversy over Günter Grass’s poem about Israel and Iran only confirms what Grass was saying: That it’s impossible to criticize Israel without being lambasted.”

Not surprisingly, the avid Twitter user Salman Rushdie was among the first to take up the issue on social media, issuing this series of messages on Monday:

OK to dislike, even be disgusted by #GünterGrass poem, but to ban him is infantile pique. The answer to words must always be other words.